My latest research elucidates shifting social imaginaries and global conjunctures of the Africa-China relationship in Chinese and Kenyan contexts through a focus on educational and volunteer tourism programs in Nairobi, Kenya designed for young Chinese nationals. In my dissertation project, entitled (Re)Mediating China in Kenya: Chinese Youth, Kenyan Hosts, and the Quest for Global Connection, I emphasize the triangulation of Western institutions, networks, and geographies in these programs and practices, leading to arguments that question the exceptionalism of "China in Africa" in the contemporary moment.
In the mid-2010s, transnationally-educated Chinese nationals began running educational and volunteer tourism programming to Kenya for middle and upper-class Chinese nationals born in the 1990s and 2000s, marking a turn from the predominance of international extracurricular trips to Western nation-states, as well as a growing interest in overseas volunteerism among these groups. The 2010s were also a time of diplomatic and economic expansion between Kenya and China, during which the Chinese government designated Kenya as a critical maritime node on the Belt and Road Initiative, and China became Kenya’s largest trading partner. Despite robust top-level relationships, on the ground Kenyan nationals largely regarded Chinese nationals as exploitative, interventionist, and settler-oriented. Yet, Kenyan educational and civil society organizations – traditionally funded by wealthy Western donors and organizations – agreed to host Chinese programs.
Drawing on ethnographic and archival research conducted in China, Kenya, and digital spaces from 2016-2019 in Mandarin Chinese, Kiswahili, and English, my dissertation explores the global conjunctures that galvanized Chinese nationals to identify Kenya as a destination for young people, and the material and conceptual transformations these programs generated for both Chinese and Kenyan nationals. I argue that Chinese and Kenyan nationals practiced forms of (re)mediation – the act of remedying problems and re-interpreting dominant imaginaries – toward different ends in order to (1) overcome the Chinese imaginary of Kenya as an unlikely destination for Chinese middle- and upper-class youth and (2) re-negotiate the Kenyan imaginary of Chinese nationals as ungenerous businesspeople. Drawing on data derived from participant-observation, interviews, participatory mapping exercises, and media-based and archival research, I show that Chinese programs depicted Kenya travel as a “meaningful” opportunity to enhance academic skillsets useful for entry into Western universities and resolve Kenya-China tensions, ultimately re-framing Kenya as a “safe” destination for youth self-exploration and expansion with “international” features, yet in need of development intervention. In the Kenyan context, I demonstrate how, in an effort to improve their organizations’ financial situations through the formation of patron-client relationships, Kenyan nationals unexpectedly welcomed and re-imagined Chinese nationals as commensurate with Western “superpowers,” perceived as benevolent and morally good, even as many remained suspicious of Chinese nationals’ intentions.
My dissertation challenges binary, compartmentalized analyses of Africa-China relationships, and instead argues for a constellational approach that incorporates both Chinese and Kenyans’ subjective and substantive entanglements with Western geographies, institutions, and networks. My findings also elucidate contestations among Chinese nationals concerning rationales for traveling to Kenya, showing how these mobilities became charged sites for moral debates over the motivations for transnational mobility, gender equality, and socioeconomic status and privilege.
Academic Publications
2019 “Film Review: Lust for Sight.” Visual Anthropology Review 35(1): 112-113.
2018 “Making the Rounds: Ethnographic Film in Circulation” (co-authored with Alia Ayman). Visual
and New Media Review, Society for Cultural Anthropology website, Jan 24.
2017 “Chinese Media, Kenyan Lives: An Ethnographic Inquiry into CCTV Africa’s Head Offices.” Working Paper Series. China Africa Research Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS-CARI).
2017 “Revolutionary Friendship: Representing Africa During the Mao Era.” In China-Africa
Relations: Building Images through Cultural Cooperation, Media Representation, and on the Ground Activities (China Policy Series), edited by Kathryn Batchelor and Xiaoling Zhang, pp.29-50. Routledge.
2014 “Accepting/Rejecting: China’s discursive reconfiguration of zoe for a new era in organ
Donation.” In “Special Issue: Except Asia: Agamben’s Work in Transcultural Perspective.” Jon Solomon, ed. Concentric 40 (2): 203-218. [Refereed]
2013 “China’s New Exit-Entry Law: Strike Hard Against Immigration.” China Brief 23:13-15.
Popular Outlets
2017 “The Madaraka Express: a ride on Kenya’s brand new Chinese-built railway.” Cross
published on Roads & Kingdoms, Slate, and CNN Parts Unknown.
2015 “A Little Africa in China.” The Diplomat Magazine. August Issue.
